4.2       Summary of range of opinion of cause of fire

4.2.1    There was no evidence of any smoking materials found in the area of origin or anywhere on site.  Smoking as a cause was discounted.

4.2.2    There was no other fires reported in the area, controlled or otherwise, that could have spread through a flying ember to this location.

4.2.3    There was no contractor work conducted in this area before the fire, this includes any hot works or any works whereby a spark could have been created.

4.2.4    The nearest railroad is the North York Moor Railway, this is heritage railway running steam and diesel trains and is known to have caused fires in the past, this is 7km away from the area of origin and has been ruled out as a potential cause.

4.2.5    There are no utilities or powerlines in the area which could have caused a spark or ignition through a fault or bird strike, this has been discounted as a potential cause.

4.2.6    On investigation there was no reports or evidence to suggest fireworks or incendiary devices was a viable cause to this fire, therefore this can be discounted.

4.2.7    There were no reported military exercises in the area whereby military flares or tracer rounds could have been used and caused a fire.

4.2.8    Light refraction which is where focused sunlight passes through glass objects like bottles, concentrates heat onto vegetation can cause fires and was considered.  No evidence of this was found at the scene and was therefore discounted.

4.2.9    Lightning strike was considered as a possible cause and 30 days’ worth of lightning strike data was collected as suggested by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (2025) Guide to Wildland Fire Origin and Cause Determination.  Information from The Met Office and https://www.lightningmaps.org/. Were used to collect data on lightning strikes.

No strikes were found in the area during the 30 days prior to 26/06/2025 and no physical evidence was found on scene.  Lightning strike was therefore discounted as a possible cause.

4.2.10  Deliberate cause of fire was also considered by the Fire Investigation Team.  [redacted] from Crime Scene Investigation and [redacted] who is a Detective Inspector at the Scarborough Investigation Hub, both assisted with the scene examination on 09/09/2025.  No Evidence was found to substantiate deliberate as a cause of fire.  I collaborated with NYP Specialist Intelligence Unit who also concurred that there was no evidence that a third party was involved in the cause to the fire or subsequent development.

4.2.11  Conducting a scene examination around the area of general fire origin highlighted an area which was open enough for human activity to happen.  This area was close enough to a water source where fresh water could be obtained and used, sheltered from wind and rain through a tree canopy but not in dense vegetation where it would be difficult to move and operate in.

4.2.12  This area was along the Northern side of Langdale forest, across the border of the forest is a small area of land which consisted of smaller vegetation such as bracken and heather, a small fence separates to two areas from the forest.

4.2.13  On the forest side of the fence an area with deep burns into the ground was identified, a small food waste area was found which indicates that someone had been here and left some items, these were found in a deep hollow near some tree roots.

4.2.14  In total, two aluminum food cans were found, charred remains of three peppers, a teabag, a coffee sachet, a chocolate bar wrapper, a melted plastic bottle and the top of an onion were found within a 2m radius.

4.2.15  Image 21* over page shows the pepper and vanilla coffee sachet highlighted in the red circle.

4.2.16  Evidence was also found of a branch which had been hacked off a tree, this was different to other tree surgery found in the forest as the other evidence found appeared to have been a clean cut to remove a branch, whereas this looked as though several attempts were made to chop the branch off.  Forestry England confirm this is not their work.

4.2.17    The depth of the burn and damage in this area was of particular note to the Fire Investigation team, it appeared to be very deep here, in places up to 50cm indicating that it may have been burning here for some time.

*images are not included in this plain text version, please refer to the PDF version